A slower ball which floated on with the arm accounted for Tony Penberthy

A slower ball which floated on with the arm accounted for Tony Penberthy. Curran was brilliantly caught at slip off a well-pitched leg break and another arm ball had Tim Walton lbw playing no stroke. Tufnell had taken 3 for 4 in 14 balls and it was a good argument to put before the selectors.Ramprakash will win few better tosses than this one on Thursday. On a flat, easy-paced pitch he put together a workmanlike hundred.

It was not one of his best, functional rather than brilliant, while his predecessor, Mike Gatting, compiled another at the other end – largely from memory.Their runs came after the best of the three Middlesex hundreds, by Kallis – his first in a Championship match. The effect of all this must have been to give Middlesex a much-needed boost to their confidence after their fairly indifferent start to the season.This result will make it easier for Ramprakash to settle in his new job while Gatting, whose advice will be so important, is well on the way to finding a new lease of life now that he has been relieved of the job which had turned his beard grey.It will not always be like this for Ramprakash. He will be asked to show his mettle soon enough when another side is treating his bowlers as Middlesex have done Northamptonshire’s. It is then that his tactical know-how will come into focus.How will he conduct damage-limitation exercises? What sort of atmosphere will he create in the dressing-room? In times of crisis, will his colleagues give him their full support? But this start must have given him the confidence to lead from the front and he can be grateful for that.. While one Australian left handed opener saw his nightmare continue at Derby, another was compiling his first century for Hampshire. Having achieved this, he went on through a long, hot day to make another, and onwards to his highest score.

Matthew Hayden is a watchful and pragmatic cricketer, unworried when becalmed. This was the ideal attitude given the daunting position the home side found themselves in yesterday morning. Gazing up at Warwickshire’s run mountain, otherwise known as Andy Moles, they were three down and 310 runs away from avoiding the follow-on. But the sky was clear, the wicket flat, and serious work was invited.
And yet Hayden’s modest start to his county career – 150 from seven knocks before this match – should have continued. On Friday afternoon, having scored five, he propped a Graeme Welch ball to David Hemp at short-leg. The fielder’s celebration was premature, and had the ball not spilled Hampshire would have been 8 for 3 in reply to 631 for 7 declared.Hayden and Hampshire profited hugely from the lapse.

A partnership with Will Kendall, proceeding cautiously against the full menu of bowlers, passed 200 before Kendall, seeking the second Championship century of his career, clipped the persevering Welch to forward square-leg.The eighteen-year-old Derek Kenway endured a long and anxious wait for his first ball in first-class cricket. Sadly he soon misjudged a straight one, with bat in up-telescope position, and the stumps were all over the place. When Shaun Udal joined Hayden, Hampshire were still 137 short of saving the follow-on Udal was not inclined to share his team-mates’ caution. It was a brave display that kept a drowsy afternoon alive with another 200 partnership, but by this time the game itself was beyond even the most artificial of respiration.. After rising to the rarified heights of second place in the Championship following their unlikely victory against Derbyshire last week, Nottinghamshire were made to suffer yesterday in the manner their more vocal detractors expect to become common this season.